A Story of Childhood and Film - Mark Cousins

 Film above: Ten Minutes Older - Herz Frank 
(the section between 1 min 30 secs and 3 mins is almost unbearable)

Mark Cousin's 'A Story of Childhood and Film' mapped out a kind of film 'essay', using personal footage of his nephew and niece as a way into his own favourite scenes of children in the movies. He draws from classics such as Kes, ET, Fanny and Alexander, Great Expectations and Meet Me in St Louis; but also from more unusual works – the 1974 Albanian film The Newest City in the World, for example; or the 1922 film Finlandia by Erkki Karu.

A key work for Cousins was Ten Minutes Older, Herz Frank's deceptively simple 10-minute film from Latvia in which an extraordinary range of emotions play over a boy's face...incredible.

Little Otik

Jan Svankmajer's tale of 'Little Otik' or The Wooden Boy features a childless couple raising a tree stump as a substitute child. Based on a Czech fairy tale, this dark film presents a nightmarish vision of desire.
Part of CineCity Film Festival currently on in Brighton. Screening all of Svankmajer's films - features & shorts. http://www.cine-city.co.uk/cinecity-11th-brighton-film-festival/

Flickr views of Self Made Worlds

Take a virtual tour of the show 'Self Made Worlds':

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wimbledonspace/sets/72157637664329773/

Self Made Worlds, London

Some installation views of the exhibition I've curated for Wimbledon Space, London...
‘Self Made Worlds’ comprises depictions of tableaux, artificial environments and alternative realities, constructed either as sculpture and models, or as subjects for photography, painting and animated film. 
Visitors: "Intricate, highly delicate and very otherworldly";"A really, really beautiful show"; "There's such a lot of wonderful works here, together in one exhibition".

The exhibition includes works that capture and convey states of mind and transform the everyday - Kate Belton, Kim L Pace, Sarah Woodfine, Louise Bristow, Corin Hardy, Nicholas Pace, Russell Webb, Peter McKintosh, Richard Hudson, Christopher Stevens, Barnaby Barford, Cathie Pilkington.

Paul McCarthy exhibition, NYC

I meant to put some images of this show on before...I saw this at Hauser & Wirth Chelsea, in May earlier this year.
Massive black walnut wood sculptures depicted McCarthy’s versions of characters drawn from the famous 19th century German folk tale Schneewittchen (Snow White) and caricatures of modern interpretations of the story, including those in Disney’s 1937 animated classic film ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’.
McCarthy had these works created by building a clay caricature; then a second version, a near duplicate; then he combined the two. He removed the heads of these figures, scanned them to develop new versions in different sizes, and reassembled the resulting array of heads with the bodies of his ‘twins’.  Wim Devoye was doing something similar on a smaller scale, in aluminium, at Sperone Westwater.

Doggie do's

 Cruel or cute?

Venice Biennale 2013

Room after room of great work...The Encyclopedic Palace curated by Massimiliano Gioni was such a treat! Samples above include: Berlinde De Bruyckere; Sarah Sze; Morten Bartlett; Fischli & Weiss; Harry Smith...

Indie Game - The movie

Yes, I know it came out last year...
I really enjoyed a glimpse into the world of these indie game developers, especially the 'Super Meat Boy' team. Obviously the process was stage managed to create a film, but none-the-less, you get an insight into the motivations, willpower and drive behind making these independent games: Braid, Fez, Super Meat Boy. All the games have a personal, quirky quality that reflect aspects of their creators.

Jockum Nordstrom - Camden Arts Centre

 Jockum Nordstrom's exhibition at Camden Arts Centre was humorous, bewitching and curious...
All his work is very 'handmade' - the drawings, collages and constructions - and evokes a naivety that is both charming and disarming. Not sure it's possible to make work like this if the naivety is studied, and it seems the childlike quality achieved is straightforward. The works communicated something very human and real: I do like art that communicates something discernible! Well worth a visit, finishes 29th September.

Souzou - Exhibition at Wellcome Collection, London

Souzou refers to the practice of 46 self-taught artists living and working within social welfare facilities across Japan. 
The images speak for themselves... This exhibition of Japanese 'Outsider Art' was refreshing, surprising, intimate and communicative. The term ‘Outsider Art’ is an imperfect approximation of another term that does not translate comfortably into English. Coined by British academic Roger Cardinal in 1972, ‘Outsider Art’ follows French artist Jean Dubuffet’s theory of art brut, formulated in the mid-1940s, meaning a ‘raw art’, ‘uncooked’ or uncontaminated by culture. ‘Outsider Art’ has since become an internationally recognised term, commonly used to describe work made by artists who have received little or no tuition but produce work for the sake of creation alone, without an audience in mind, and who are perceived to inhabit the margins of mainstream society. A great show! Kim

Frederik Peeters - Pachyderme

Pachyderme by Frederik Peeters is a mysterious tale, not particularly linear - although there is a story line to follow. It's in full colour, and visually very interesting, with comical characters and strange happenings. The passages work best for me when there is little or no dialogue: pure brilliant storytelling in pictures. Don't look for a straight-forward story here - it's the unexpected aspects that slip between the panels that make this an unusual and surprising read. And it challenges what to expect from a graphic novel: always a good thing!